Calm Air brings staff and communities together

When 20-year Calm Air International LP customer service agent Maria Amaral was recently faced with the bureaucratic hurdles involved in renewing the five-year pass that allows her access to restricted parts of airports, she paused to consider whether the trouble was worth it. “Am I really going to be doing this for another five years?” she recalls asking herself. “Darn right, I am,” came the instant answer.

“I enjoy my job,” Amaral explains, “but more, I love my colleagues and I love interacting with our customers, especially the long-term ones I’ve known for almost two decades. You can feel the mutual respect between them and us.”

The Winnipeg-based airline offers passenger, charter and cargo services to more than 20 communities in northern Manitoba and the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut. It’s dedicated to understanding and supporting those Indigenous communities in more than their travel needs. Calm Air’s job postings routinely note that Inuktitut language skills are an asset, including in Winnipeg.

“We are committed to providing opportunities in the communities we serve because it is important to us that our staff are representative of those communities,” says Randi McCallum, acting vice president of human resources and payroll.

Calm Air has long held community feasts for youth and elders, two annually, on a years-long schedule that eventually reaches all the Nunavut communities it flies to. Since 2021, it has been proud to join its parent company, Exchange Income Corporation (EIC), and the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers, in which EIC’s various northern airlines combine to bring 1,200-1,500 Indigenous northerners to a Bombers game around the time of the Sept. 30 National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Calm Air’s part requires a major volunteer effort among its employees, which it never fails to get.

“The people who work here ask us so far in advance to take part that we have a waiting list and a system of rotation to give everyone a chance.” McCallum says. “And when you see everyone come together while working on these special events, you realize what a family we have, not just within Calm Air, but with our communities.”

The airline’s family feel is also evident in its increasing emphasis on mental-health wellness in the wake of the pandemic, including enhanced benefits in the EAP (Employee Assistance Program) and a separate $1,000 mental health practitioner benefit. Calm Air has also made changes to its management training in that area.

“Mental health awareness and coaching managers on how to handle those types of situations with their teams has become a much larger part of how we train,” McCallum says. And because “we want staff to stay at Calm Air if we can nurture their goals,” she adds, that training is strongly focused on employee career advancement.

“In my five years here,” says McCallum, “Calm Air has provided amazing opportunities from the start, just letting me put my hand up to take on new things and allowing me to do and learn what I needed to advance.”

For Amaral, though, the greatest opportunity involved the company’s own product. The customer service agent has special appreciation for the free rides north that Calm Air provides employees. “A couple of co-workers and I went up to Coral Harbour in Nunavut, which was amazing because everybody and everything up there is lovely,” Amaral says. “Know what?” she adds with a laugh, “I really do love this job.”

This article appeared in the magazine announcing this year's Manitoba’s Top Employers winners, published March 19, 2024 in the Winnipeg Free Press. This article was prepared with the financial support of the employer, which reviewed but did not write its contents.